Rockland to discuss new methadone clinic

ROCKLAND, Maine — The city council will decide Monday if it wants a new methadone clinic to move in. Colonial Management Group, which already has a clinic in Bangor, asked Rockland officials to rezone a building that was used as a clinic until federal drug agents shut it down last summer.

The Rockland city planning board decided earlier this month that the group’s application was legal and ready for the council to discuss.

Colonial Management would like to move into 166 New County Road, which used to be the home of Turning Tide methadone clinic. That clinic was shut down by federal Drug Administration agents, citing unspecified threats to public health and safety.

Turning Tide’s owner Angel Fuller McMahan, who was arrested for possession of cocaine last August, had said she intended to sell her clinic. In the past year though, the council found that her company broke the rules of the contract zone the city gave her to run the methadone clinic. Now the building is not allowed to be a methadone clinic without the city’s special permission.

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The City Council will take up the issue 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22, at Rockland City Hall.

Currently, Knox County is without a methadone clinic. A national company tried to open one in Warren, but had issues with the town’s government, which instituted a temporary moratorium against methadone clinics. CRC Health Groups sued the town over the moratorium, arguing it violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by preventing drug addicts from getting treatment in Warren.